


Devil's Luck

by NoHolds



Category: Uncharted
Genre: F/M, Starring Nathan Drake: Walking Disaster
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-01
Updated: 2015-09-01
Packaged: 2018-04-18 13:11:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4707179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoHolds/pseuds/NoHolds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nathan Drake swears he doesn't believe in "curses and crap," but everyone knows better.</p><p>(Four superstitions that Drake indulges in, and one he blindly ignores)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Devil's Luck

**1**. Nathan Drake Swears he's not a gambling man.

He won't touch dice, won't bet on races, won't even set foot in a casino.

He'll also swear that he's not superstitious, but you see that kind of things he's seen, you'd have to be crazy not to put a little faith in the supernatural.

And so, somewhere in the back of his mind, he thinks he's gonna run outta of luck some day. Like it's a non-renewable resource, like burning it off's killing him slowly.

Every time he takes a bullet and lives, every time he makes a jump he shouldn't have, every time somebody he loves survives something they shouldn't've, Drake can feel his luck draining away.

He looks at a bullet hole in an old journal and thinks, _that's a bullet I'm gonna have to take some other time._

Elena walks away from a grenade with nothing but a few nasty scars, and part of Drake is screaming that next time will be one step too far.

Next time she will be standing too close, next time he won't be fast enough, next time the jump will be too high, next time there will be one too many guns trained against them.

Why squander your luck away at cards when you could be in a gunfight the next minute?

 

 **2**. Every time Nate's feet leave the ground, in the seconds before his fingers touch home on the other side of a jump, he thinks, _this could be it. This could be the time I don't make it._

 So he starts saying goodbye every time he sets out, but never 'if-I-don't-make-it-back', because he doesn't want to jinx it.  
Nate's not superstitious, but why push your luck?

 

 **3**. After Shambala, Drake and Elena limp down from the Himalayas bruised and bloody; Drake with stitches across his nose and a broken wrist, Elena with pink new shrapnel scars healing jagged across the front of her body.

The first thing they do when they hit sea level is go shopping.

Elena's clothes were shredded by the grenade, cut to ribbons in the shrapnel, and while pre-distressed clothing is in this year, bloodstains and tatters aren't really her style.

Nate's wardrobe is in better shape, but sweat-and-blood stained and torn in places, stinking of swamp and copper and gunsmoke.

So they get down the mountain ratty and reeking, and they hit the first store they find.

It's a combination gas station/tourist trap, one of those little roadside rest stops where no one stays very long, the kind of place that exists outside of time.

(Nate looks at the place, all 90s decor and 80s electrical work and peeling paint, and thinks with all sincerity that if a magic, time-altering artifact turned up here he wouldn't be suprised)

The only clothing the place sells is ugly tourist fare, printed with Photo-realistic wolves and bumper-sticker slogans.

(Nate, grinning, jerks a thumb at a 'world's best grandpa' shirt and says "You think I should buy that for Sully?")

Nate eventually ends up in a faded t-shirt that reads 'I climbed the Himalayas and all I got was this lousy T-shirt'

Elena laughs almost to tears when she sees it, and Nate grins.

"What?" he asks, "Too soon?" 

Elena just rolls her eyes. "I know what would complete that outfit," she says, a belt dangling from her hands.

There's a laugh in her voice because, really, it's an ugly goddamn belt. All thick leather and over-sized cowboy buckle, an upside-down horseshoe stamped into the cheap metal.

Only, the smile kind of slips off Nate's face for a second, and he buys the belt without a smirk or a joke.

("Really, Nate?" Elena says, when the cashier rings it up. "I was _kidding_.")

Elena and Drake part ways not long after, but Nate keeps the belt.

Months later, going through security in a tiny airport in west Germany, Sully sees the belt and says,

"Aw, Nate, don't put that godawful thing back on."

Nate has a joke ready this time, threading the belt back through his jeans and grinning. "What, Sully? A boy can't want to get lucky?"

Sully groans and gives him a shove, but Nate pulls his shirt down to hide the buckle and takes the belt off only to sleep.

 

 **4**. The next time Elena sees the belt is in Yemen a few years later.

Nate staggers through the door to her hotel room looking like something dragged back from the grave.

His lips are cracked and bleeding, his fingers are torn, and when he speaks there's a raspy slur to his words.

He leans hard against the door frame and winks at Elena, trying for levity. "What's a girl like you doin' in a place like this?" He slurs, and cracks half of a grin, gums showing red and bloody behind his lips.

Elena barrels into him, hugs him too hard, his salt-dry clothes crackling with the force. Nate smells like tar and seaweed and ocean water, and when Elena pulls back with her nose wrinkled he collapses, hitting the ground without grace or warning.

When Elena hauls Drake to his feet, he is clutching at his ribcage with both hands, as if this is the sort of damage that can be undone with a little pressure in the right places.

Even half-unconscious, slurring affections he'll later regret into the bed of Elena's lap, Drake keeps his arms curled around his chest, like it'll help hold him together.

Elena presses an uncertain hand into his salt-stiff hair and allows him the illusion.

 

 **1**. There are some things you should never, ever say. And Nathan Drake is not a stupid man. he knows this. But sitting on a beach in the sun, a cold beer in hand, making plans with two old friends, he forgets.

"So, we're dicking this guy over, right?" Chloe says, and Nate stretches in the sun, takes a swig of his beer.

"Ah, what the hell," he says. "What could possibly go wrong?"

**Author's Note:**

> Saw Nate's belt in Drake's Deception and this fic was born.  
> Also, the second cutscene in the second game because really, Nate, you should know better than to say "what could possibly go wrong?" (The answer, as always, was 'A LOT, NATHAN.')


End file.
